Cheapest place to get long lengths of CAT5?

Ebuyer is normally very cheap for stuff like that...
 
Just google 'cat5 305m reel' and see who is cheapest this week.
 
Here's another retailer, I've used Scan for years.

Link

You can get free delivery from them (minimum spend £20) by registering through AVForums or Hexus.Net

AVForums

The information on AVForums is slightly out of date, you don't need a minimum of 20 posts on the forums anymore.

Hexus.net You need 20+ posts on this site.
 
just try your local electrical factors, i don't know what they have down there but the one we mainly use at work is LPD. Don't take their price as gospel though, we were using another supplier and the cable was twice the price for the same stuff :lol:
 
Dont forget the max recommended length is 100m..

:thumbs:
 
Depends on the length, and whether you care about the colour.
Every-so-often, there are very good drum deals that come up on Ebay. I got a couple of 250M long drums from there, Think it was around £30 per drum. Ok, so one was CAT6 rated, (the core was a bit of a pain), and the other was low-smoke purple.
I have now wired up the house (only around 20 points admittedly), and still have half a reel left.
I had tools already (although I broke one in the process, it was ~15 years old)
 
I had tools already (although I broke one in the process, it was ~15 years old)

tools are a good point if youre just buying a reel of unterminated cable..

the punchdown tools usually come with the RJ45 faceplates or BT style sockets (or if youre friendly with a visiting BT guy they normally have a couple hundred in the bottom of their toolbox) :thumbs:

if youre terminating to plugs then youll need the crimping tool (i forget its proper name).
 
You could try calling some local cable installers as they may have some spare boxes left from large jobs that they'll sell cheap. Blackbox sell it at fairly decent prices. £40 here for 300m. The usual suspects are quite pricey for cat5 in bulk.
 
if youre terminating to plugs then youll need the crimping tool (i forget its proper name).

The crimping tool I got I think was around £3.50 from ebay. Came with a rather nice wire stripper as well (I always used to use a scalpel).

I would warn against cheap RJ45 ends from Maplins, I bought several bags from them, emptied and poured them into a box (hence I couldn't return them), and found that they didn't work properly. Connections were very poor from them. Using a cable length more than a foot, and there was no signal. (Used them for 6" patch cables in the end, this seemed to be OK.)
 
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The crimping tool I got I think was around £3.50 from ebay. Came with a rather nice wire stripper as well (I always used to use a scalpel).

great stuff :thumbs: i just borrow the one from work.

I would warn against cheap RJ45 ends from Maplins, I bought several bags from them, emptied and poured them into a box (hence I couldn't return them), and found that they didn't work properly. Connections were very poor from them. Using a cable length more than a foot, and there was no signal. (Used them for 6" patch cables in the end, this seemed to be OK.)

those the ones that you put the 8 core into a little block then slide it into the connector? if so theyre a pain in the arse..
 
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